


Five to One

by inbarati



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-14
Updated: 2010-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 23:01:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbarati/pseuds/inbarati





	1. Chapter 1

Rupert Giles sat on a bench window seat in his London apartment at three in the morning, strumming his guitar and watching lightning illuminate the Summer's School for Exceptional Young Women across the street. There were no lights on in the apartment, or showing from the building across. In fact, the whole street was dark. Lightning had hit a transformer up the block about an hour ago, and service would not be restored until the summer storm was over.

Changing songs, Giles thought about the dreams that had him up past even his usual late hours. Images of blood, and medical equipment, machines he didn't recognize, soldiers, men in white coats, and a face he knew intimately, but was so ravaged he almost didn't recognize it.

Ethan Rayne.

Humming, but not singing the words that popped into his head just then, he frowned and wondered if they were prophetic in this particular situation. Five to one, baby. One in five. No one here gets out alive, now. He remembered Riley Finn making a similar joke as they had hauled Ethan away. He had smiled at the time. Not even the Initiative could hold Ethan Rayne for long. Chaos served Ethan every bit as much as Ethan served it.

He couldn't still be there, could he? Frowning, displeased with the line his thought was taking, he carefully leaned the guitar against the seat in front of him. Concentrating, he reached for the part of Ethan that was always with him. They were bound together in love and sex, blood and magic, and not even years of separation and mutual animosity could split them entirely. As he reached it, he felt energy being drawn from him in a wave, power that had lain dormant since his teen years suddenly rising up and flowing over him, through the link. He had a flash of a white room with blood dripping on the floor, and the connection broke just as suddenly as it had begun. Giles barely had time to gasp in a desperate breath, when lightning split the sky again.

Actually split it. For several seconds, as the thunder cracked and rumbled, there was a dark hole in the air where the lightning had been, about ten feet from Giles' second story window. As the hole began to close, something fell from it to the street below. Giles bolted from the room seconds later, down the stairs and out to the street to help the man he had seen literally fall from the sky.

He knew it was Ethan even as he left the room, but that did not prepare him for what he found on the street. Ethan was a broken, bloody mess. Moreso than was accounted for by the fall Giles had seen. Rupert knelt in the street, heedless of the rain that was soaking him, trying to decide whether it was safe to move the broken man or not. Still unconscious, Ethan started to thrash. Deciding that, if Ethan's neck was broken, the thrashing would do more damage than picking him up, Giles tucked Ethan's near arm under his left, wrapping it around the shivering man's back to secure the other arm. With his right arm, he grabbed Ethan's legs firmly, cutting off the kicking, and carried him up the stairs.  
Ethan woke after the first flight, renewing his struggles, but making no sound. Giles sat on the landing, fearing he would drop the struggling man, but not letting him go. "Ethan, it's me, Rupert Giles. You're safe now. I won't harm you." The struggling increased, and Rupert's glasses went flying off into the dark. Desperate, Giles adopted the harsh accent he had affected in his teen years, turning Ethan's head to face him. "It's Ripper, you bloody fool! Now calm down before I have you thrashing for a reason!"

Ethan immediately stilled, staring up at Giles with a worshipful expression, before fear flashed across his features, and he struggled to his knees, hands in the small of his back, head bowed and eyes down. Giles felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he remembered training Ethan to take exactly this position in their games of pain and submission. "Ethan, no-" he started, but stopped when the injured man started to tremble violently, and spread his knees, attempting to perfect his position. He carded his hands through Ethan's lank, blood-caked hair. "That's good, love. You're always so good for me. Can you stand?"

Giles supported Ethan as he shakily got to his feet. Putting his arm around the unsteady man's waist, and taking Ethan's arm over his shoulders, he encouraged him to let Giles support his weight as much as possible as they carefully navigated the stair to Giles' door. Depositing Ethan on the couch, he returned with his emergency kit. As he began removing the two-piece uniform and binding some of the wounds, he realized that many were beyond his expertise. He grabbed the phone from the side table and hit the second speed dial button.

"Willow, hello. Yes, I know, I'm sorry to have disturbed your sleep. No, no, I'm fine, but I could use your help. Yes. Would you be so kind as to bring Elizabeth and tell her to bring her kit? No, Willow, I assure you I am uninjured." Rupert sighed, "It would be much easier to explain in person. Yes. Yes. The door is unlocked. I'll be expecting you." Giles hung up the phone. Elizabeth was the school's live-in doctor. Willow and she had been together since shortly after Willow's tearful return from Brazil, where Kennedy had taken up with another female watcher. Rupert shook his head and turned his attention back to the couch, where Ethan had apparently fallen asleep. His life frequently resembled those horrid American soap operas that Spike still loved to watch. Picking up the phone, he hit the third speed dial button.

"Hello, Xander. Is Spike there? He just got back from patrolling? It's late for that. Sixteen Gregnar demons? Are his Slayers okay? Yes, I'll put in the order for human as soon as Marcus gets in, in the morning. Yes, I did call for a reason. I have a matter on which I require Spike's expertise. No, don't bring any Slayers. It's not something that requires slaying. Yes, I'll expect the two of you. The door is unlocked, and Willow and Elizabeth are coming too. No, don't call Buffy. I'd rather she not be involved until I know what's going on. Okay. Good-bye." Hanging up a second time, Giles continued stripping Ethan, and wiped off as much of the blood as he could. Some of the wounds were old, the blood dry and crusted, but many others were fresh, the blood flowing freely.

As luck would have it, he was in the bathroom when the front door opened. "Giles?" Willow's voice called.

"Be right there! Wait for me in the kitchen!" Giles called back, not wanting them to stumble across Ethan before he's had a chance to explain. How, exactly, he was going to explain was quite beyond him at the moment, but his children had grown up on the Hellmouth. They would adapt. Dropping the steaming bowl and clean washcloth off on the table at the sleeping Ethan's feet, he continued to the kitchen. Spike was making a pot of tea, and Xander was making coffee. Willow and Elizabeth were sitting at the table, listening to the boys banter, and quietly giggling at them.

Xander saw him first. "Hey G-man!" He did a double-take. "Willow said you weren't hurt! What happened?" He pulled out a chair and guided Giles into it.

"I'm not hurt, Xander." Giles motioned for the men to sit. "Spike, I hope you don't mind if I use you as an object example." He looked over at the vampire.

"Not if you pay me in some of that scotch you have hidden over the ice chest." Spike grinned.

Giles rolled his eyes, and made a 'help yourself' gesture towards the cabinet in question. "I'm sure you all remember when Spike first got chipped, back in Sunnydale?"

Everyone except for Elizabeth nodded. "I've heard the story from a few different people," she replied.

Giles smiled. "Spike was our enemy. He was evil. But we helped him because he had been victimized by something still more evil. The Initiative." He felt heartened at the black looks that received his mention of the secret government organization. "I believe that the Initiative is still active. Perhaps no longer in Sunnydale," the survivors all pictured the crater, "but certainly elsewhere in the world. I believe we have again come to a point where we must help someone who has formerly fought against us, because the Initiative has done something worse." Giles rose and motioned them to follow him to the main room.

There was a look of confusion on the faces of the younger Watchers. They did not recognize the haggard man sleeping under a plaid blanket on the sofa. Just then, the man's eyes snapped open, and Willow gasped, "Ethan Rayne!" Magic crackled at her fingertips.

Xander got between her and the man on the couch. "Willow, stop."

"He's dangerous, Xander! He can't be here!" Willow tried to get past him, but he wrapped his arms around her torso and half-dragged, half-carried her to a chair across the room, and sat her in it.

"Listen to me very closely, Willow." Xander fixed his oldest friend with a stern look. "First, this is Giles' house, and he gets to say who can be here and who can't." At Willow's chastened look, he continued. "Second, I want you to look over there at the man that I love, who has made me happy for the past five years, and tell me it isn't possible for Ethan to become a good person. We have to give him the chance to try. Hopefully we've learned from our mistakes, and we won't cross over into evil territory ourselves with how we treat him, like we did with Spike." He shot a loving glance at a shocked looking Spike, and continued. "Third, we gave that man to the Initiative, and did nothing to help him, even when we knew they were more evil than he was. We owe him."

Elizabeth added, "Also, my oath as a doctor will not allow me to let him suffer needlessly. I'm required by my calling to help him, Willow." She crossed to the couch, and after examining Ethan for a few moments, opened her satchel and began preparing to clean and stitch some of the deeper lacerations.

Willow looked at Giles. "Xander is right. I'm sorry." At Giles' nod, she asked, "Do you have the ingredients for a simple healing spell? I could help some of the more serious injuries on their way."

Smiling, the elder man took her hand and led her back to the pantry where he kept his magic supplies. When they were out of sight, Spike covered the distance between himself and his lover in two quick steps, and took the man into his arms. "I love you," he murmured into the soft hair by Xander's ear.

Xander responded with, "I love you, too," but not before a delighted grin covered his face.

Just then, there was a shriek from the couch, and Elizabeth was bowled over as a silent but terrified Ethan bolted for the corner. When the other four charged into the room, Ethan cowered as the others dashed into the room, tears pouring from his fear-filled eyes. As Giles approached him, motioning the others to stay back, Ethan again assumed the kneeling position he had shown earlier. Giles knelt next to him, pulling his chilled hands from behind his back and chafing them gently. "What happened?" he asked, without looking away from Ethan's down turned face.

"I was about to inject one of the bigger lacerations with a local anesthetic," Elizabeth replied, as Spike helped her back to her feet. "He woke up just as the needle pierced his skin. I think he has a fear of needles."

"Being a 'guest' of those wankers will do that to you." Spike murmured. "The Initiative doctors like to inject muscle relaxants before they do their 'experiments.' That way you can't really move, but you're awake and aware and can feel the pain." Xander and Elizabeth both laid a comforting hand on each shoulder.

"I see," Giles replied, a frozen look on his face. "Can you tell me what the 'experiments' might entail? I can make any information you can give worth your while."  
Spike looked affronted. "How long has it been since you had to pay me for information, Watcher? I'm one of the good guys now, remember?"

Giles had the grace to look embarrassed. "I didn't mean to imply that. I meant that dredging up such painful memories deserves some recompense. Perhaps a bottle of the scotch you like so much?"

"That's a bit of alright, then," the vampire said, smiling briefly. "We should get those hurts taken care of first, though. He looks a little knackered, and he won't rest proper if he's still in pain."

Giles coaxed Ethan back to the sofa, supporting him and murmuring soothing nonsense to his temple. Willow and Xander exchanged a look at this behavior, but remained silent. When Ethan was lying down again, Giles had Elizabeth show him the needle, and explained that it was to stop the pain. Ethan looked dubious, but allowed Elizabeth to go about her business, his eyes never leaving Giles' face, even when the injections made him wince.

An hour later, the larger wounds were all stitched, scrapes and minor cuts bandaged, and Ethan was as clean as a cloth and water could get him. Elizabeth began packing her kit. "I'd recommend an actual shower tomorrow, if you think he can manage it." She held up a bottle of pills. "These are antibiotics. I'm not sure how he'll react to pills, but given his reaction to needles, I'd rather not inject them unless I have to. I'd give you a sedative to help him sleep, but I'm afraid the feeling will remind him of what those bastards did to him, and it's more important that he take the others. You can give him acetaminophen for the pain, if he'll take them." Finished packing, she stood. "I have a physical to give at nine in the morning, so if you don't have any further need of me, I'll go back to bed."

Willow kissed her partner goodbye. "I'll be home soon. This healing spell won't take long." The others returned Elizabeth's tired smile and wave, as she walked out the door.

Willow knelt in front of Ethan with a brazier and the herbs she had collected from the pantry. Giles handed her a milk white crystal, which she placed on Ethan's chest. The man in question merely watched. Giles noted that Ethan had yet to make a sound, and wondered if there was an underlying cause. Willow began to chant, and the crystal to glow green as she added herbs to the smoking brazier. Just as Willow was about to end the incantation, Ethan closed his eyes and clenched his fists. The green glow left the crystal, concentrating on a point at the center of Ethan's forehead. There was a small pop as Ethan opened his eyes. The glow seemed to sink into Ethan, and his eyes glowed green momentarily before returning to normal. The crystal on Ethan's chest had turned black.

Willow swayed dizzily, almost falling before Xander grabbed her shoulders to support her. A small trickle of blood ran from her nose. Giles handed her a handkerchief. "What just happened? That was an undue expenditure of power for a simple healing spell."

"I didn't finish the spell," Willow replied. "It was like someone sucked all the free power from me. The crystal wasn't supposed to turn black either. I'll have to go to Devon tomorrow, and get the coven to help me figure this out."

Giles had his suspicions, but kept them to himself. "You best be getting some rest as well, then. Why don't you all go get some sleep? I'd like to discuss the Initiative with you, Spike, however all this has tired me out completely. Ethan could probably use some rest as well."

They said their goodbyes, with promises to meet for a late breakfast the next day on the part of the men. Giles acquired a blanket and a pillow from the chest against the far wall, and attempted to make Ethan as comfortable as possible. The injured man took the antibiotics and analgesic from him without comment or fight, much to his surprise. He dimmed the lights to what he hoped was a comforting level, without turning them out completely, unsure of Ethan's reaction to darkness at this stage. Then he turned down the hallway to his bedroom, where, in spite of all the excitement he was asleep in moments.


	2. Chapter 2

He was awoken at about noon by the doorbell. He sat up immediately, body going into crisis mode before he was fully aware. Ethan was kneeling beside the bed, in the same posture he had adopted twice the night before. Rupert rubbed his eyes tiredly, got his spare glasses from the nightstand, and went to answer the door. Ethan didn't move.

The door opened to Spike with a bag full of groceries in one hand, and his slightly bent glasses in the other. "Found those on the landing. He fought you on the way in, yeah?" Without further comment he went about making eggs and toast for three people.

"Yes, he did at that." Giles sighed heavily. "He's kneeling beside my bed as we speak. Do you know how I can tell him not to do that without causing panic? And where is Xander?"

"I arranged for Betine and Wenari to have an emergency this morning. I don't want to keep secrets from my boy, but there is no point in him being upset by things he can't change, yeah? As for your Ethan, the kneeling might be something you have to put up with for a while. I had decades of dealing with Angelus as practice in how to resist torture. I doubt your boy had that same benefit."

Giles paled at Spike's matter-of-fact reference to the torture he and Ethan had both undergone, and remembered that Spike had only been a 'guest' of the Initiative for a few months. Ethan had been there for years. "He's not my Ethan, or my boy, or my anything. I am responsible for what he has gone through, and want to make reparations in any way I can, however inadequate."

Spike arched a scarred eyebrow at the elder Watcher. "You might think he doesn't belong to you, but given his behaviour, he seems to have a different opinion."

"Shite." Giles pressed his forehead against the coolness of the wooden doorframe.

Spike made no comment about the unusual use of profanity, replying, "Brekkie's ready. See if you can get him to come eat."

Ethan refused to sit at the table, kneeling at Giles' feet instead, much to his mortification. He was unsurprised when Ethan refused to feed himself, as the rules to this game required Giles to feed him. Spike, with his usual crude perspicacity, casually said, "You must have trained him well, if your rules are what he remembers."

Giles stared at the vampire in wide-eyed shock. "What?" he stammered, unable to come up with a suitable reply.

" 'M not blind Rupes. You're the only one he responds to. If it were Initiative training he wouldn't submit to anyone not wearing fatigues or a labcoat. He's looking for security, protection. He associates those things with submitting to you, not to soldiers or scientists." Spike looked a little wistful. "You must have been a good Master."

Gobsmacked. Rupert stared at Spike, mouth gaping. "I couldn't possibly-" he stammered, "I'm not that person anymore." He looked imploringly at Ethan. "I'm not that person anymore."

Ethan began to tremble. Spike was uncertain whether he understood the words Rupert was saying, but he certainly understood that the protection he sought was being denied. "Rupert Giles, you self-centered sod! You owe it to him to do whatever it takes to help him. I was idiotic enough to get myself caught by the psycho-soldiers, but you handed this man over to them on purpose. You took his life away, and now it's your responsibility to give as much of it back to him as possible," Spike exclaimed, trying not to yell.

Rupert looked desperately at Spike. "Couldn't you-"

"You know that I was trained by Angelus, and that I spent a century following Dru's every whim, and you think I'm a top?" Spike looked incredulous.

"I hadn't actually thought that far," Giles replied, sighing. Realization dawning on his face he said, "Xander-"

Spike was instantly snarling in the older Watcher's face. Ethan pressed his face to the linoleum. "I. Don't. Share."

Scooting his chair back from the game-faced vampire before him, Rupert backpedaled quickly. "Of- of course not. I apologize. That was inconceivably rude of me."

"Got that right." Spike growled, shaking off the demon. He jerked his head toward the cowering figure on the floor. "Didn't mean to make 'im worse. Lost my temper."

"My fault entirely. I should not have been so presumptuous." Giles stroked Ethan's hair and tugged on his shoulder until he knelt up again. By way of apology, he held a piece of toast to the trembling man's lips. Warily looking into Rupert's eyes, Ethan took a small bite. When Rupert smiled at him, he began to chew, slowly and carefully, as if toast were a delicacy to be savored. When he swallowed, he was presented with a forkful of eggs. The ritual was repeated until the eggs and toast were gone. Ethan leaned his head on Rupert's knee as the Watcher and the vampire discussed Initiative training. It wasn't long before a hand found it's way to Ethan's hair to stroke soothingly. Feeling full and safe for the first time in what seemed like eons, the kneeling man dozed.

 

Spike agreed to be the one to tell Buffy about the chaos mage's return, and to keep her away from the apartment for awhile. Giles called the office at the Summers' School, and arranged to have someone take over his classes for the foreseeable future. Sadly, the Ancient Babylonian advanced class would have to be cancelled. There was no-one at the school with the expertise to teach it. Giles arranged to tutor over the phone any of the Slayers or Watchers-in-training who decided to continue studying on their own.

Willow came back from Devon a few days later with news. "Ethan absorbed the energy from the spell before it could affect him. He also drew the natural energy from the crystal, which is why it turned black." She eyed the mage speculatively. "He may have gotten some energy from any of the natural fibers in the building, and it's possible he even drew some from the electricity around him, but I can't think of anything to explain the surge of power it would have taken to teleport at all, much less if he did it for any distance."

Giles kept his own counsel on that subject. A blissfully uneventful fortnight followed. Buffy called on several occasions, but avoided coming to the apartment, which he thanked her and every god he could think of for. Spike brought a box of 'presents' which Giles left unopened when he saw that the label on the box said "Eros Boutique, Inc." Dawn came to visit several times when she wasn't in class. Ethan took to her immediately, and would kneel at her feet, gazing up into her face, enraptured as she read aloud to him. After a few days, she even got him to express a preference on books if she gave him a few choices, even if it was only a sly glance at the cover of the one he wanted to hear, before training his gaze on the ground. Dawn rewarded this enthusiastically, with praise, Earl Grey, and chocolate biscuits.

Dawn was called away to Los Angeles, to translate a prophecy for the restructured Angel Investigations, headed by the newly shanshued Angel. Dawn's expertise in Etruscan cuneiform was unparalleled by anyone excepting perhaps Giles himself, and he wasn't too sure of that anymore. Ethan reacted badly to her absence, refusing to do anything but stare at the door. Giles couldn't get him to eat, or even move to the couch to sleep. He knelt about ten feet from the entrance, waiting, until he collapsed from exhaustion. Giles was beside himself. Spike advised him to 'take control,' and let Ethan know that his behaviour was unacceptable. When he thought about how he would have done that before, he was repelled by his own visceral reaction to the images he recalled.

On the tenth day of Dawn's absence Giles woke to find that Ethan was not sleeping in front of the door. The burst of relief he felt was short-lived. Ethan wasn't on the couch, either. He checked the bathroom and the kitchen, which were empty, leaving only the library. Giles stood in the doorway in shock. Books had been strewn everywhere, the shelves almost completely empty. Some of the older books, whose bindings weren't as strong, had lost pages. Ethan was asleep with his head on a foot-thick copy of Arlock's Compendium of Demon Anatomy. He awoke at Giles' horrified gasp. Locking his gaze on the man in the doorway, he calmly stood, and walked to the desk, the surface of which was clear, because the contents were on the floor. Finally dropping his gaze and turning to face the desk, he bent over it and grasped the other side.

A cold fury washed over Giles. He looked desperately around the room, but could not find an uninjured book. His eyes lit on a box on the table next to his chair. Under a sixteenth century book of prophecy was the Eros Boutique box. Fine. Ethan was obviously asking for punishment. He had done things to anger Giles on purpose before, in order to incite punishment, but nothing on this scale. If Ethan wanted punishment, he would get it in spades, growled Ripper's voice in his head.

Carefully placing the damaged book in the chair, Giles ripped open the box and inventoried the contents. A long paddle with holes, a leather strap, wrist and ankle restraints with accompanying clips, a medium flogger, a complicated looking cockring, a punishing-looking buttplug, and three bottles of lubricant. Dropping everything except the paddle back in the box, he crossed to the desk. Without warning, he cracked the paddle across Ethan's ass. Ethan made no sound, though the blow was hard enough to make him stand on his toes. Somehow this lack of sound served to inflame the Watcher's anger. "You will cry out before I'm through with you," he hissed. A flurry of harsh blows followed, allowing Ethan no time to adjust, but he still made no sound. His knuckles whitened around the edge of the desk as Giles became more methodical in his approach, covering from the top curve of his cheeks to just above the backs of his knees with a solid, blistering litany of methodically placed blows.

Rupert's cock tented his loose linen slacks. When Ethan spread his legs, trying to provide some relief from the burning pain, he had to pinch himself off to keep his orgasm at bay. When the realization of what he was doing, and his reaction to it hit him, he dropped the paddle, horrified. Ethan looked over his shoulder at the clatter of wood on wood. He turned and knelt, lips millimeters away from the sensitive flesh in front of him, but his eyes never left Rupert's.

"Ripper. Master. Please." The ragged whisper drained every ounce of resistance from the Watcher.

Ethan carefully undid the button on the cream-colored slacks. The purpling head of Giles' cock pushed past the fabric. Ethan placed a tiny kiss at the tip, before gripping the tab of the zipper in his teeth, and slowly undoing it. Giles failed to repress a full-body shudder, painting Ethan's lips with his juices. Ethan licked his lips, the tip of his red tongue brushing the bundle of nerves right below the head. With a subvocal growl, Rupert ordered, "Suck me, Ethan."

Obediently the kneeling man took the rigid flesh into his mouth. Slowly working his way to the root, Ethan hummed happily when his nose touched Rupert's quivering stomach muscles. Swallowing, he held there for a few moments before pulling back. Repeating the motion, he traced esoteric designs with his tongue. Rupert's hips twitched and Ethan moaned, causing a cycle of twitch and moan that increased in urgency until Rupert's hands tangled in Ethan's hair, holding his head still so he could fuck his mouth, and Ethan hadn't enough breath to moan. The mage's hips began rocking fruitlessly against the air, and he made pitiful mewling sounds whenever he had the breath to do so.

The needy sounds made Rupert pull back, eliciting a pained groan from both men. Watching the movement of Ethan's hips for a moment, the watcher demanded, "Tell me what you want."

"You, Master." Ethan pleaded with his eyes. He stilled his body as much as he could, unable to stop the trembling.

"I know you have a better answer than that, sweetness." There was a warning in Rupert's voice.

Dropping his gaze to the floor, Ethan whispered something inaudible.

"Do you need to go back over the desk?" was the icy reply.

Ethan shook his head without removing his eyes from the floor.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you." Rupert waited until Ethan looked up. "Answer my question."

"Whatever you desire, Master." Ethan struggled to breathe normally.

Rupert smiled. "That's a pretty answer, but not the one I wanted to hear." Seeing fear touch Ethan's eyes, the Watcher cupped his cheek gently. "It's not a trick question. I want to know what you'd like."

The trembling increased. Ethan's eyes searched the room for an escape. Finding none, he closed his eyes, resigned. "Please, Ripper. Fuck me."

"Stand up."

Ethan swallowed hard, trying to quell the fear. Even if he ran, Ripper would catch him. He was still injured and slow. He stood, flinching when a hand gripped his arm.

"It will be easier to walk if you open your eyes," an amused voice whispered close to his ear. He shivered, and then froze, expecting retribution. When none came, he slowly opened his eyes. Ripper was smiling at him as he grabbed a bottle of lube from the box. Guiding him by the arm, they walked down the hall. Stopping in front of the door to Ripper's bedroom, which had been shut since Ethan got there. He had never been inside.

Rupert opened the door, and guided Ethan inside. He tossed the bottle onto the bed. Pushing the linen pants to the floor and kicking them away, he began to unbutton his shirt. Ethan remained where he was, uncertain of what was happening. Rupert stripped to his boxers, and then approached Ethan. He gripped the hem of Ethan's oversized t-shirt. "May I?" he asked, gently.

Too stunned to speak, Ethan merely nodded his head. The shirt joined the other clothing on the floor. Tugging gently at the knot in the drawstring sleep pants, Rupert checked Ethan's eyes for permission a second time. Receiving another stunned nod. He untied the pants and let them fall to the floor. Ethan stepped out of them and slid them to the side. Rupert's warm hands covered Ethan's chest, rubbing over pebbled nipples gently, before pinching them, slowly and gently increasing the pressure until Ethan's head dropped back with a moan. "So beautiful," Rupert murmured into the crook of Ethan's neck, tracing the contours of each protruding rib all the way down to his waist. Bringing his hands together over Ethan's trembling stomach, and tracing his navel with his thumbs.

Ethan shivered on top of the trembling he was already doing, resulting in an undulation that brushed their hips together. They both gasped, heat suffusing them instantly. Growling, Rupert grabbed Ethan's hips and pulled them together roughly. The responding tremor from Ethan bumped hardness against hardness. Ethan's eyes rolled back in his head. "Please, please, Ripper…" he begged breathlessly.

Rupert walked Ethan the few steps to the bed, refusing to separate their bodies until Ethan fell backwards onto it. Swiftly divesting them both of boxers, he covered Ethan's body with his own. Ethan's skin was cool to the touch, but warmed under him. Fingers tracing over slick scar tissue, and smoothing the velvet skin between, Giles catalogued every inch of the body beneath him, committing it to memory, comparing it to the pictures in his head of the Ethan of years ago. Saddened by the pain written on the body of the man before him, Rupert resolved to make it up to him, as far as he was able. Slicking his fingers, he nudged Ethan's thighs apart. Ethan instantly opened as far as his body would allow, allowing full access. Rupert gently circled his exposed opening with one finger. Biting back a growl when his fingers crossed several places where tears had healed over, he let the tip of his finger slide in. "You tell me if you need to stop, understand?" He fixed Ethan with a serious look. Ethan's frantic nodding was belied by the upward thrust of his hips, impaling himself on the invading finger, and moaning, "Now, now, now, now…"

Want flared through Rupert's being. Ethan's desperation was contagious. He prepared the writhing man as quickly as he could and still be sure their coupling would be as painless as possible for him. Finally, he removed his fingers and positioned himself. Ethan wailed at the feeling of emptiness, completely incoherent with need. Rupert pressed forward slowly, and Ethan continued to keen as he slowly enveloped Rupert. The Watcher lifted Ethan's hips, and the keening was interrupted as the slow slide pressed against his prostate. Blinding pleasure took the mage's breath away and caused colorful flashes behind his eyes. When Rupert pulled back until Ethan was sure he'd pull all the way out, he whooped in great gasping breaths. Again, Rupert slid in at an agonizingly slow pace, and back out again. Over and over, slow and sure, until tears began to leak from Ethan's eyes, the pressure against his prostate sending electric waves of pleasure all over his body, robbing him of breath, until he was sure that the pleasure of it would end him.

Rupert paused, noticing the tears. "Did I hurt you?" he gasped, almost out of breath himself.

Ethan frantically shook his head, arching his back and pulling Rupert towards him with his heels in the small of his back. Rupert smiled, and took up the slow pace again. Ethan tried to thrust up to meet him, and increase the speed, but Rupert held his hips still. Ethan's too-long hair flew back and forth over his face as his head thrashed. Finally, finally, he felt the orgasm ignite at the base of his spine, flowing over his body like liquid fire, igniting every cell. He screamed, the pleasure almost painful in its intensity.

Rupert paused to watch, gritting his teeth against rippling muscles that threatened to force the orgasm from him. He wasn't ready yet. He waited until the screaming stopped, and Ethan was limp and panting on the bed, eyes rolled back in his head. Rupert started to move again, that same slow, steady pace. With the first brush against his sensitized prostate, Ethan's eyes flew open, and he fixed the Watcher with a disbelieving stare.

Rupert grinned at him, and undulated, taking Ethan's breath away again. His cock twitched and started to fill. He really was going to die. Fucked to death right here in Ripper's bed. He didn't deserve to have it this good. Ten or twelve agonizingly slow strokes later, and his cock was hard and leaking again.

Then Rupert started to speed up.

Ethan was crying in earnest now, the pleasure breaking him apart, leveling every barrier he had erected to protect himself, but Rupert didn't stop this time. Ethan sobbed every time he could get a breath, which was not very often with Rupert driving into him hard and fast, now. The fire was back, this time working its way in from his toes and fingertips to coalesce in his groin. Hotter and hotter, until he thought he'd burst into flame. Rupert arched and practically roared pulling Ethan roughly to him as he spilled inside of him. The added heat pushed him over the edge, and the heat that had pooled in his cock erupted up his spine, the look of stark pleasure on Rupert's face the last thing he saw before he blacked out.

Ethan woke a few moments later to the feeling of a warm, wet cloth on his chest. He opened his eyes to view a concerned, guilty looking Watcher cleaning him. He put his hand over Rupert's. He looked up, relief plastered all over his face. He opened his mouth, and Ethan cut off the coming apology. "Thank you."

The eyebrow went up in a look that was pure Ripper, and Ethan felt a sliver of hope, which he abruptly quashed. This was not Ripper, this was Giles. Not his lover, but the Watcher who had handed him over to torturers and forgotten about him. A whisper in his mind reminded him that the Watcher had never taken the time to discipline him, as this man had. He ignored it and sat up, shakily.

In the hoarse whisper that seemed to be all his voice was capable of nowadays, he continued, "This is the part where I leave before you turn me over to the authorities." He began to pull on the pants that were on the floor by the bed, but Rupert grabbed his arms.

"I'll let you go if that's what you really want," he said sadly. "I certainly don't deserve to keep you. You don't have to go straight to the street, however. Summers' School owns this building, and there are always empty apartments as Watchers come and go. Let me set you up in one until you're ready for a place of your own."

Ethan was still stuck on the second sentence. "You want to keep me?"

"I have never not wanted you, Ethan. I was a foolish young man, and believed it when they taught me that I couldn't have both duty and desire. I was afraid, after what happened with Randall, and I thought the trappings of duty would protect me. I really should have known better. Then I let wanting what I thought I couldn't have turn me into a stuffy, tweedy old man before my time. I've only ever loved one other person, and if you knew how much she reminded me of you, you'd piss yourself laughing."

Ethan's head snapped up, and he glared at the Watcher. "What did you just say?"

"You'd piss yourself?"

"Before that."

Rupert smiled forlornly. "I love you Ethan. I always have. I know I destroyed whatever you felt for me. I never deserved you. But there hasn't been a day that I didn't wish I could change things, make them accept both of us. And I never thought the Initiative could hold you. I thought you were finally sick of me, and that was why you didn't come back."

Ethan sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the man beside him. "They drained my magic."

"What?" Giles was immediately outraged.

"They had one of the more cooperative mages siphon the magic from me. Every day for seven years, until I had none left, except what I could absorb by reversing the siphoning spell. The day I did that, they scheduled me for termination. Talked about it right in front of me, like I wasn't even there. That soldier, the one who was with you that last day, he was there, and suggested that instead of terminating me immediately, I be assigned 'recreation duty' one last time."

"Recreation duty?" Giles knew he didn't want to know, but Ethan needed to talk, and the sacrifice of his delicate sensibilities was the least of what he owed this man.

"Off duty soldiers and cooperative captives get recreation time. Most just want to get off," he made a face at this, "but others have more… interesting pastimes." His fingers brushed over several of the scars on his chest and stomach.

"Oh, gods." Giles wanted nothing more than to take Ethan in his arms and make sure nothing ever hurt him again, but he was sure the chaos mage wouldn't accept it.

"I had enough power to try and contact you. I imagine you must have heard me, because you answered. I didn't expect you to, though. I had been sending you messages for a week when I finally felt you."

"There was a thunderstorm outside the compound the last night I was there. I was scheduled for 'recreation duty' that night. It was the first time that soldier boy who was with you had come. He had a dozen or so knives strapped on outside his uniform. He was carrying some sort of battery in one hand, and the other was full of electrodes. I knew he planned to kill me, and not quickly. I closed my eyes and reached out for you one last time, hoping, praying to whoever listens to degenerates like me. And there you were. I could feel the lightning where you were too, and I had an idea. I took the power from you that I needed, and rode the lightning to where you were."

"I was sure you'd leave me in the street to die, but it had to be less painful than the alternative. When I woke up and that doctor lady was trying to stick a needle in me, I thought it hadn't worked, that I hadn't escaped. That seeing you was just a near-death hallucination. When I saw you coming toward me, I thought I would faint."

Rupert pulled the thin man into his arms. "I'm so sorry, love. I know I can never make it up to you. I'd like to try anyway. Stay with me? Let me try?"

"Say it again, please?" Ethan turned his face into the salt and pepper curls on Rupert's chest.

"I love you. I love you. I always have and I always will. And you can't leave. I'll chain you to the bed if I have to. You're mine. I'll never let you go."

"I was hoping you would say that." Ethan hid his watery smile against the strong chest in front of him, sighed, and snuggled closer.


	3. Chapter 3

"Ripper, hurry or we'll be late!" Ethan straightened his bow tie, and surveyed the effect in the mirror. Rather dashing, if he did say so himself.

"Yes, yes. I'm ready." Giles finished doing up a cufflink. "What do you think?" He spun for effect.

"You already know you're bloody gorgeous. Far be it from me to add to your ego." Ethan smiled indulgently at his lover.

Dawn poked her head in the front door for the third time in five minutes. "You know, it looks really bad when the two brothers show up and the fathers of the bride don't make it to the wedding. Everybody else is already in the limo. Spike wanted me to tell 'those two old biddies to get a move on.' That's a direct quote."

"Gods forbid the test case for vampires who require ADHD medication should be forced to wait any longer." Ethan rolled his eyes and threaded his arm through Giles. "Let's be off then."

Dawn was stunning in her gown, the moonlight making her glow with an eldritch light. Ethan helped her out of the limo, and they walked a little ways out of the field and into the surrounding wood. "I'll miss your stories," he said wistfully.

"I'm only going to be on honeymoon for two weeks, silly. It'll be my first dimensional hop. I'm so excited!" she squealed. "But I'll be back before you know it. I love being a Watcher; I'll always come back. And leave you and Giles and Spike and Xander? Never! I'll be back in two shakes of a lambs tail, so make sure you pick out an extra good story while I'm gone."

"I was thinking Ulysses."

"Again? Don't you ever get tired of it?"

"No. It's the first one you read me, and therefore my favorite." Ethan smiled as they walked back towards the others.  
"No hogging the Nibblet." Spike took her arm and the five of them walked toward the altar.

The groom, a young Mor'leth demon Dawn had graduated Oxford with, looked justifiably intimidated, but the four men managed to get through the ceremony without growling at him.

The ceremony was simple, Willow binding their hands with a cord before they said the vows they had both secretly sweated over. Dawn's voice rang clear as she promised to share her life with the demon she loved. The crowd assembled behind them as she got ready to toss the bouquet. Giles stood off to the side, intent on not participating, but a small breeze picked up just as the bouquet left Dawn's hand, and it hit him right in the face. Automatically putting his hands out, he stared dumbfounded at the flowers, as Willow, Dawn and Ethan shared a conspiratorial smile.


End file.
